Friday, November 30, 2012

Another way angry old white men have been
protesting Obama seizing power through "democracy" is by flying the flag
upside down. Which is so fucking chicky it gives me
contact-embarrassment. "Take that, Mr. Big Shot, with your fancy
'getting-the-most-votes.' I'm taking this flag and throwing a drink in
its face. And you know how the Lincoln Memorial is on the five dollar
bill? I'm farting on it." Wow, that really stings.

There have been dozens of cases, from Ohio
to Kansas to Texas, anywhere there are friendless, egg-shaped pink
fucks with a flagpole and a mis-held belief that they can do magic, and
sometimes just talking back to the TV isn't enough.

Larry Guerrieri, master of angry-flag-inversion-hate-magic, told Pittsburgh CBS affiliate KDKA,"That's
a sign of distress; this country is in distress right now. This
Benghazi incident, he left them four people there to die. That's the way
I feel about it." Gee, I wonder where he gets his news.
A McDonald's in West Virginia flew its flag upside down the day after the election, but claims it was an accident. Their actual statement:

"Unfortunately, a flag cable broke and during the process of
trying the fix the flag, it was inadvertently turned upside down. It
wasn't noticed that the flag was upside down until a customer inquired
about it. We are working on fixing the flag right now. It's important to
note that this was an accident, not intentional."

Please, if I wanted to be force-fed bullshit, I'd order the McRib.

Now, I couldn't care less about Flag God, but it does seem kind of small, if you do worship symbols, to wipe your ass on the one that represents your country because your guy lost an election.
The United States Flag Code Title 36, Chapter 10, says:

"The flag should never be displayed with the
union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme
danger to life or property."

But we all understand that the rule against flag desecration only
applies to the left. It's like calling America a piss-stinking hellhole
full of lazy moochers: You're only allowed to do it if you're a
patriotic Republican.

Who shops at the Hallmark Store? Who's smoking all the meth? Who's watching Duck Dynasty -- a reality show about rednecks who make duck calls? It gets higher ratings than 30 Rock or Homeland and I can't prove they're white and stupid, but someone's watching it...and it ain't Cornel West.
The fact is, there are people who didn't vote for Obama, and some of them are taking it pretty poorly.
Can white people hold a grudge? Ask anyone with Confederate flag mud
flaps. Ask Mel Gibson how he feels about the crucifixion and Jews.

The White House website has a feature called "We The People."
You click on it and see Joe Biden eat ice cream, totally nude. No you
don't. You click on it, and any yahoo can submit a petition about issues
that are "mportant" to the country. Since the election, petitions have
been submitted from all 50 states to secede from the union. The Texas
petition has over 100,000 signatures, followed closely by the petitions
from Louisiana, Florida, Georgia and Alabama. Which is remarkable
because, to submit a signature, you have to be able to write.

"The US continues to suffer economic difficulties stemming from
the federal government's neglect to reform domestic and foreign
spending. The citizens of the US suffer from blatant abuses of their
rights, such as the NDAA, the TSA, etc. Given that the state of Texas
maintains a balanced budget and is the 15th largest economy in the
world, it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union,
and to do so would protect it's citizens' standard of living and
re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original
ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers which are no longer being
reflected by the federal government."

Of course, I can understand breaking up
the United States over the TSA. Because what real Texan wants someone at
the airport finding out how small his dick is? But isn't it odd that it
only became a problem after Obama was reelected? Was Mitt Romney going
to get rid of the metal detectors at the airport? Is it because they
interfered with his titanium endoskeleton?

Or are Texans just chronic sore losers? There was another time they lost some battle, but I can't remember its name.

Our stupid media managed to become so obsessed with Paula Broadwell
and Jill Kelly that they completely forgot about another woman who
caused even more damage: Sandy. As in Hurricane Sandy.

Thousands of people were without power for weeks, many are still
displaced and criticism has been leveled at FEMA and the Red Cross. I'm
not saying it was as bad as Katrina, but it was pretty bad, and people
are starting to say that President Obama just doesn't care about white
people.
The New York City subway was back to 80 percent normal operation just
a week after the hurricane hit, thanks to incredible dedication and
hard work of the transit workers. Or as the Republicans call them, those
lazy public union employees who sit around doing nothing, so we should
cut their pension.

Meanwhile, the utility companies couldn't seem to get their shit
together. Partly because they're just like any other corporation, trying
to maximize profits by cutting corners. Which is OK when you make a
toaster or a vibrator, because when those things fail nobody gets hurt.
They just don't get toast or an orgasm.

Look, it's fun when the power goes out for a couple of hours. You can
make a baby, you can loot a Best Buy; it's party time. But when the
power's out for more than a day, Americans start to freak out. We can't
survive without electricity anymore. We're like a fish that's jumped out
of the aquarium and is flopping around on the counter. If we don't have
access to heat and light and WiFi, we go crazy. I'm just surprised New
Yorkers didn't turn to cannibalism. Especially after reading the review of Guy Fieri's new restaurant.

New York City's grid dates to the early 20th Century. People are plugged into power lines put up by Nucky Thompson.

Because of our old grid, Americans in the northeast lose power an
average of 214 minutes a year, versus just 53 minutes a year for the
French. And the French don't care; they just open a bottle of wine and
sing Edith Piaf songs.

What we need to do is bury the power lines, modernize the equipment,
and decentralize the grid, so when one transformer goes out or one power
plant goes offline it doesn't take out the power for the entire
tri-state area.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Fox News, you win. You have spewed your fact-free bile so insistently
and so repetitively that the hypnosis has worked. A significant
percentage of your viewers have accepted your ravings as gospel and what
you report is no longer just a diversion or entertainment. Your fan
base has become a dangerous cult.

We really do have to look at the level of hate and paranoia that's
been stirred up in people by a right wing propaganda machine that has
not just mischaracterized, but demonized, this President of the United
States. The Secret Service recently had to pay a visit to 22-year-old California resident Denise Helms who posted on Facebook, "Another 4 years of this nigger. Maybe he will get assassinated this term." Without even a smiley face or an "LOL" or anything.

When the posting went viral and the local press caught up with Denise, she said, "I
didn't think it would be that big of a deal. The assassination part is
kind of harsh. I'm not saying like I would go do that or anything like
that, by any means, but if it was to happen, I don't think I'd care one
bit."

And then Denise went back on Facebook to post, "So apparently my
post last night about Obama got onto Twitter and Fox 40 came and
interviewed me cause apparently a lot of people in Sacramento think I'm
crazy and racist. WOW is all I got to say!! I'm not racist and I'm not
crazy. Just simply stating my opinion.!!!"

Thanks to Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and Fox News and all the other
anything-goes, whatever-it-takes hypnotists, our President has
officially become dehumanized in the eyes of their cult followers, a
thing to be dreaded and feared like the Plague or communism or Mel
Gibson after a few Captain and Cokes.

We all read what Trump said about Obama's election, as well as Ted
Nugent and Victoria Jackson. I'm just saying, it's the second term --
maybe it's time for those re-education camps. There are a lot of people
in this country who are in need of some serious deprogramming.

By Bill MaherNew Rule: Now that he's been re-elected, President
Obama must get back at all those right wing hacks who tried to paint him
as an angry black man pushing a liberal agenda by becoming an angry
black man who's pushing a liberal agenda.

Now, I have been mostly holding my tongue about the President this
past season, because I didn't want to muddy the waters in a country
where you only get two choices, but Mr. President, there are two ways to
look at your 51 to 48% victory: One is, we love you. The other is, we
like you 3% better than Mitt Romney. And by the way, let us never speak
that name again... Mitt... let it be a dark and buried memory of a close
call with a creature equal parts pure evil and excellent posture, like
getting dry humped in a crowded subway by Roger Moore.

I like this President. In all those secret strategy meetings we had,
with me and him and George Soros and The New Black Panthers, I found him
to be very agreeable, Allah be praised. But it's now the job of
progressives to hold his feet to the fire for causes important to us. If
not now, when?

There's no third term, Mr. President, so you may as well throw
caution to the wind, 'cause it's not like we're using it to produce
energy. Yes, clean energy, that's just one of many issues, like civil
liberties, the drug war, the drone war, the war war, gun control -- that
have been on my mind these last four years, and let's just say I've
been waiting to exhale. And by that I mean, I've been holding my nose.

But you're free now -- with no more elections to win, you are free to
never again have to kiss the ass of coal miners and say the words
"clean coal." There is no such thing as "clean coal." It's like saying
"Internet Privacy" or "Tea Party Intellectual." Or "Fox News
Journalist."

Another priority should be cutting the defense budget -- we’re the
home of the brave, let's prove it by getting by with one less submarine.
Yes, we were involved in a struggle against a radical enemy bent on our
destruction -- but the election is over, and we need to recognize that
America has the same problem with the defense budget that Mrs. Petraeus
has with her husband's penis: it's swollen, and we can't bring ourselves
to touch it.

And as far as Afghanistan goes, I know you said we're leaving in
2014, but look at it this way: enemies are always on guard for a
surprise attack, but they'd never suspect a surprise retreat. Really. We
can leave right away. Because we've figured out something the Afghans
haven't: air travel.

And as long as we're ending wars, how about the War on Drugs? Two
states, Colorado and Washington, have actually legalized pot now, which
gives you as president the rare opportunity to improve the world by
doing... absolutely nothing. Just tell Eric Holder to stay the hell out
of Boulder, and if the conservatives bitch about it, throw states'
rights back in their face -- isn't that their big theme, send it back to
the states, the will of the people? Well, this is the people who, in
those two states on election day, got up off the couch and drove their
1987 Toyota Tercel with the "Visualize World Peace" sticker on the back
to the polls, and voted to stop the drug war. And then drove home and
got back on the couch.

And finally, instead of rewriting Social Security, how about
rewriting the Patriot Act? How about another look at rendition, and
warrantless searches and wire taps? And how about stop listening in on
our phone calls and reading our e-mails. I'm not a teenager and you’re
not my mom, okay? And besides, there's a better way to confirm your
suspicions that I'm smoking weed and hanging around the wrong people:
just watch my show.

Did the ability to raise an infinite amount of money in this election make a difference?

If you just paid attention to the Presidential race, then you might
think the answer is no. But that's because the Presidential race is
unlike any other contest in the country. People take it personally.
They're invested in it. They'd seen Obama for four years and they'd seen
Romney on Jay Leno and the cable shows and the debates. People in swing
states may have been drowning in a bukkake-like stream of Romney and
Obama ads, but it's not like those ads were providing all of their information.

But when it comes to state contests and ballot propositions, people
generally don't know much beyond the ads, so in those races money isn't
just the main thing, it's the only thing.

Prop 37 went down in defeat because $48 million was spent to defeat it. This was a proposition that asked the simple question, "Wouldn't you like to know what you're putting in your mouth?" Before the ads
started running, something like 90 percent of Californians who answered
were for Prop 37. Now, they're against it. They're against knowing what
they're putting in their mouth.

It's not that the anti-37 ads were particularly convincing. They didn't make any real arguments. It's just that there were so many of them.
I saw them on Hulu when I watched old episodes of "My Favorite
Martian." People keep complaining about the repetition of political ads,
the same ad over and over and over, but that's the whole point -- it's
hypnosis. That's how hypnosis works. The same thing. Repeated over and
over. And over again. The same thing. Repeated over and over. Again.
Repeated. And before you know it, you think you're a chicken. Or you
don't care what's in your chicken.

Fox News and the radio meat-puppets and the crank blogs are obsessed
with Benghazi. It could be bigger than the Fast and the Furious
scandal, and by that I mean a thimble full of flyshit no one cares about
who's not on the take.

The Obama haters want revenge for how we said Bush was asleep at the
switch for 9/11, so they're going to prove that Obama either ignored
Benghazi, or lied about it afterwards, or possibly ordered it himself.
And that's why he looked so tired in the first debate. He'd just
gotten back from Libya, where he'd been firing mortar rounds at his own
men.

Everything -- for the next four years -- is going to be tied to
Benghazi. And if you say it isn't, that just proves you're part of the
plot.

Fuck you, Pearl Harbor and 9/11 -- the worst thing that ever happened
to America was Benghazi. Okay, second worst, after having to buy health
insurance. Here’s a tweet from Newt Gingrich a month ago:

By the way, it's wrong to say, "No one died at Watergate." Nixon
originally set up the Plumbers to fix the leaks about the Pentagon
Papers, which were about the war in Vietnam, where 50,000 Americans
died.
Here's a tweet from Rupert Murdoch, about General Petreaus:

It's all connected!

We're going to hear that Petraeus was set up by someone or framed, or intimidated, because he knew too much about Benghazi.

Is it true? Does it matter? Glenn Beck needs something to keep the
rubes listening. This is the new thing. It's like when Rod Stewart went
disco.

Friday, November 23, 2012

Andrew Sullivan was on the show Friday, and he's written several blog posts on The Daily Dishwondering
why the media never asked Romney to be more specific about his Mormon
faith, especially the part about not allowing blacks into the priesthood
and temple ceremonies until 1978.

Sure, they had their prophecy in '78, but the old
blacks-are-cursed-by-God stuff is still in their books, and Romney
apparently believed it until he was in his thirties. Maybe he still
believes it. It's not like they erased the passages in the Mormon
literature. Why didn't a journalist ask Romney about this during the
election?
The standard line about this stuff is that "religion is off limits,"
which makes no sense because religion is just something someone
believes, the same as their belief on abortion or tax cuts or
any other issue. Maybe whether a candidate has Type O blood or is a
Sagittarius or enjoys a finger in his butt during sex is irrelevant, but
a system of beliefs that informs one's entire moral code?

Why are Mormons against gay marriage? Jealousy? No, it's because of
their religion. Because of their religion, gays in California can't get
married. Why should this be "off limits" to journalists?

As Andrew points out, if Obama belonged to a church that preached for
decades that whites were inferior, don't you think it might become an
issue?

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Mitt Romney has lost and he'll soon be accepting his new job as
professor of method acting at The New School in New York City. And after
watching him play all these different characters over the last two
years, really, who better?

Now comes the hand-wringing and finger-pointing that always follows electoral defeat; 500 columns of "If they'd done what I
said, something, something, measuring the drapes in the Oval Office."
And they'll all miss the forest for the trees. Except Dick Morris --
he's always right.

So now that I'm done telling you how everyone else will be full of
shit and focusing on the wrong things, let me focus you on the big
picture thing that's absolutely correct: Mitt Romney lost because of the
Republican brand and Republican policies. There are other reasons, of
course, like Mitt being unlovable to anyone not named Ann Romney, but
nothing trumps the idea that 2/3rds of America thinks the other 1/3 is a
frightening conglomerate of Bible-thumpers, xenophobes, and
vaginophobes. (Not a word, but should be.)

Take Mitt's pivot from being "severely conservative" to being "the
white Barack Obama." Sure, everyone tacks to the middle after the
primaries, but Mitt's performance was different: it was a full-scale
repudiation of just about every idea that conservatives hold dear. The
positions were changed. The rhetoric was completely different. He was
basically Barack Obama, Caucasian Edition.
Now I know what you're saying: this is what Mitt Romney always does.
Being a shape-shifting phony isn't an act; that's who he is! And this is
true.

But it isn't who Michele Bachmann is. When it comes to nutty
right-wing beliefs that are completely false, she's a true believer. And
yet what was Michele Bachmann saying during the waning days of her
too-close-for-comfort campaign? She was putting out an ad distancing
herself from her own Party -- even her conservative district:

"Michele Bachmann is an independent voice working for us, saying
no to big spending by both political parties but bringing them
together..."

Then Michele pops on the screen and says, "That’s why I've been an independent voice working for you..."

Wow. ...I'm just saying. When even Michele Bachmann can't run as a
proud Republican, your brand identification has reached "pink slime"
territory.

Friday, November 9, 2012

Let's say you're a deficit hawk, as it seems almost everyone is these
days. I give you a choice: Candidate A wants to reform entitlements,
cut defense spending, and raise revenues. Candidate B wants to reform
entitlements, raise defense spending, and lower
revenues. Also, Candidate A's party has a history of lowering deficits,
and Candidate B's party exploding them. Who would you trust more on the
deficit?

Obviously, Obama is Candidate A, and Romney is Candidate B. It's
really not that complicated to determine who would be better on deficit
reduction. You don't even have to look at their specific proposals, just
the broad approach. Lowering deficits by raising defense spending and
lowering tax revenues is simply impossible.

Yet, look at this ABC/Washington Post poll.
Asked "who you trust to handle" Medicare, international affairs, taxes,
a crisis, the economy, and health care, Obama gets the edge. But what's
the one area where Romney has a big edge? Handling deficits.

Economists say Romney wants to increase defense spending by $2
trillion. Where do they get that? He's said repeatedly that defense
spending has to be at least 4% of GDP, and that's a $2 trillion charge
on the credit card. My first thought was, Romney's not serious; saying
defense spending should be at least 4% of GDP is completely arbitrary
and stupid. But what if he is serious, and that's his stimulus? Obama's
stimulus was only $800 billion, and it included things that actually
reduce government spending in the long run, like making all federal
buildings more energy efficient.

If this is Romney's stimulus, it's EXACTLY what Reagan did -- nibbled
at spending on social programs, while massively increasing defense
spending. There's only one problem with it: as Bill Clinton would say,
arithmetic. Something's got to give -- and it's the national debt.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

In
California, we passed a "term limits" bill in 1990. The idea was that
people, once elected, get too entrenched and become a part of the
"system" whatever that is, and that the Founders never envisioned a
professional politician who stays in office 30 years. So, to avoid this,
we capped the amount of time state legislators can serve. Nice idea. In
theory.

But here's a fun fact: 60% of the politicians who are
"termed out" run for another office. It doesn't even matter if it's a
lower profile job, like city council or small town mayor. They just have
to do it. This is who they are.

And a good number of the remaining 40% become lobbyists and never leave Sacramento.

I
mention this because Arlen Specter died recently. And who didn't like
Arlen Specter? (Other than lots of voters in Pennsylvania.)

But
Arlen was one of these people, like Joe Lieberman, and Mitt Romney, who
absolutely needed to be in public office. When the Republican voters
said to Arlen Specter, "Actually, no you don't," Arlen switched parties
and became a Democrat. Which is how he started. Before he became a
Republican. For 44 years. Because the party wasn't important. Being in
office is what's important.

This is one of the reasons Mitt
Romney creeps me out. According to people who know him, he's been
running for president for decades. He's always wanted to be president.
And his entire political career has been conducted with that goal in
mind.

Now, to be sure, Obama is also an extremely ambitious man. But watching that first debate you thought, "Well, he's not that
ambitious." It seemed like he'd love to be president for another four
years, but if he wasn't? "Eh, no big deal. I'll go back to Hawaii and
hang out with my old friends from the Choom Gang."

Such naked
ambition, the kind that allows you to become the type of person who will
take both sides of every issue in order to pander to every voter
possible and maximize your Q rating, is a bit frightening. Because then
it's not about the job. It's not about the people you're representing.
It's really about you.

If
there's one drum the right wing likes to bang it's the one about the
"liberal media", which, by law, must appear in every right-wing
editorial or come out of the mouths of every Fox News and radio show
pundit at least four times a day or Rupert Murdoch strips you of your
wingnut accreditation.

Claiming "liberal bias" is like a tick.
If you make up a scandal and it doesn't get reported to your
satisfaction, it's not because the whole Solyndra thing was a great big
nothingburger, it's because the liberal media is protecting the
president. If Sarah Palin says something stupid and it gets reported,
it's not because Sarah Palin said something stupid. It's because the
liberal media has it out for strong conservative women who quit their
jobs and do nothing for years.

And to this end, Fox News'
website now has this thing called "BIAS ALERT." And each day, in bright
red letters, they post some example of what they think is "liberal
bias."

Except there's only one small problem: it's almost never
an example of media bias. What they seem to have uncovered is that
...grab hold of something ...not everyone is a Republican.

...Yes,
Andrew Sullivan is not a fan of Mitt Romney. But how is this evidence
of media bias? Andrew Sullivan is not a reporter. He's a blogger and
columnist. He's not held to some standard where he's not allowed to be
partisan, or to express his personal views. That's what he does. It's like saying Charles Krauthammer is biased. The bit might as well be called "PEOPLE WHO SAY THINGS WE DON'T LIKE."

Other
recent recipients of Fox’s "BIAS ALERT" include David Letterman, whose
monologues are apparently bound by the standards of fair journalism, and
Mother Jones, the liberal magazine that busted Romney on his 47%
comments. How dare they not agree with Mitt Romney on everything, and
then say so?

This is almost sort of refreshing. Because it means
that 95% of the time we have to sit through some wingnut screeching
about liberal media bias, they don't actually understand who is actually
bound to a standard of journalism (journalists) and who isn't (everyone
else). They're just upset that people exist outside their bubble and
they don't believe the same things they do.

So to recap: reality is now evidence of media bias. And so are people with opinions.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

According
to a poll done a few years ago, over 90 percent of Americans in all age
groups and income levels think genetically modified food should be
labeled. Seems like a no-lose campaign issue for either Romney or Obama.
So why aren't they talking about it?

Back in 2007, Obama said
he supported food labeling; but since he's been president he's been
silent. And so has Romney, even though there's evidence
both Romney and his wife eat mostly organic food, which suggests to me
that they have at least some concern about what they put in their
mouths. Or maybe they're just trying to counteract the daily campaign
diet of photo-op corn dogs.

Actually, I can see why Romney would
be hesitant to talk about GMOs, because in his early days as a
consultant he helped convince the company Monsanto to shift its focus
from chemical manufacturing to biotech.

Leaving aside the question of whether genetically-modified crops are good or bad (and since some studies have shown feeding it to rats gives them giant tumors, I vote for "bad"), it’s a simple issue of you have the right to know what you're eating.

Conservatives
are constantly having freakouts over the phony notion that Obamacare
gives government bureaucrats control over their bodies. But Monsanto
already has control over your body, unless you spend eight hours a day
researching every item sold at Trader Joe's. Scientists can't even do
studies on Monstanto GM seeds unless Monstanto gives them permission
first.

It reminds me of how when you buy the new Taylor Swift
album on iTunes you don't actually own the music. You only own a license
to play the music file.

Corporations are able to arbitrarily
make the rules and we just have to suck it up and accept it. That is, if
we want to eat and listen to music.

New Rule:
Not everyone who says something you don't want to hear or who asks you
to do something you don't want to do is a bully. There were two
prominent cases of so-called bullying in the news recently: the obese
news lady from Wisconsin who claims she was bullied
because a viewer wrote in and said, as a public figure and a role
model, she had a "community responsibility" to "present and promote a
healthy lifestyle," and the Iowa JV football coach who got suspended for breaking the district’s anti-bullying and corporal punishment policy because he made one of his players run laps.

Now,
October was Bullying Awareness Month, which means something to me
because I was bullied as a child. There was a kid who would beat me up
and take my super-PAC donation money. But, at the risk of making someone
feel bad, and thereby becoming a bully myself, may I suggest there's
been a bit of bully inflation going on?

The Village Voice
and others call Michael Bloomberg's size-restriction on sugary soft
drinks "soda bullying." But Mayor Bloomberg didn't instruct cops to walk
through Manhattan slapping Big Gulps out of people's hands. He simply
recognized that, with one out of every three of our kids either
overweight or obese, perhaps enough soda to fill a small bucket is
adequate for a first helping. No one is saying you can't drink as much
Mountain Dew as you can hold -- they're just saying, for ounces 17
through 32, you have to get your fat ass up out of your seat and waddle
back to the concession stand.

Likewise, scoffing or rolling
your eyes during a debate, as Fox News would have us believe, is not
bullying. No, that's the appropriate social response to weasels telling
lies. Joe Biden expressed ridicule at your candidate's shameless
whoppers -- he didn't hold him down while Martha Raddatz gave him a pink
belly. The ass-kicking was figurative.

Sometimes, for the common
good, you have to hear something you don't want to hear or do something
you don't want to do. Like paying taxes. Or getting off your ass and
taking care of yourself. I'm not talking about law enforcement rolling
up to where you happen to be standing and forcing you to run -- hat's
only in the inner city. I'm talking about something we used to have but
now seem to dismiss -- our social responsibility to one another.

There
are a few really key objects that explain why the 20th century worked
out like it did: The cyclotron, the small pox vaccine, the invention of
black people and sex in the late 50s. And the tank. I just want to say,
right up front, hooray for tanks. The British invented them, the Germans
perfected them, and Arabs still can't win a war with them, even against
other Arabs. No matter how many they have. It’s actually weird. How
hard can it be? It's like American Indians never coming up with the
wheel.

And the best tank ever made is the M1 Abrams. It's got a
1500 horsepower Textron gas turbine engine and a 120 MM smoothbore
cannon from the good (German) people at Rheinmetall Landsysteme GmbH. It
weighs almost seventy tons, just like Rush Limbaugh, and can still do
45 mph on level ground, just like Paul Ryan. That said, the tank is a
shitty welfare program.

In the vice presidential debate, Joe Biden said: "The
military says we need a smaller, leaner Army. We need more special
forces. ...We don’t need more M1 tanks. What we need is more UAVs."And he's
obviously right, except the M1 is made in Ohio -- the Valley of Elah for
this entire election. And that's why Romney, Ryan and their ads,
automated phone calls and surrogates are hammering away, like history's
best tank is basically Terri Schiavo and Obama wants to yank its feeding
tube."When you say…that we don't need any more Lima-built
M1 tanks, what we are doing is we're projecting weakness, and when we
project weakness abroad our enemies become more brazen!" -- Paul Ryan,
in Ohio

"We need M1 tanks because they're part of the
greatest military on the face of the earth. They will ensure that we
have a military second to none so that we can keep the peace. We need M1
tanks!" -- Ohio Sen. Rob Portman

Here's the thing. The Army doesn't want any more M1s.
We're getting a remodeled tank in 2017, and Obama would like to shut
the M1 factory down and save $3 billion between now and then. This would
cost 800 jobs.

Here's the other thing. It doesn't matter what the Army wants, Congress keeps voting to make more M1s. Last year, over Army objections,
the defense appropriations bill included $255 million for 42 more M1s,
basically to keep the factory open. So it's welfare, plain and simple.
$255 million for 800 jobs building 42 tanks for no one.

Part of
the problem is the M1 is too good. We never need to replace them. In
the first Gulf War nine were damaged beyond repair. In the entire second
Gulf War, we lost eighty.

Now we have 2,300 M1s deployed around
the world. And three thousand (3000) more right here in California,
sitting there, row-on-row, at the Sierra Army Depot.

Since
President Obama took office, the banking industry has been regulated,
the auto industry has been saved, the stock market has more than doubled
and the unemployment rate has dropped from 10-something to 7-something,
its lowest rate in over four years. Or, as Fox News is reporting it, "a
dismal record of failed economic policies."

In the housing
market, sales are climbing and burst-bubble home prices are beginning to
inch back up. Last month, it was announced that existing home sales
jumped to their highest level in over two years and residential
construction is up 29% over 2011.

But all this is just numbers
unless American consumers start to sense solid economic ground under
their feet and get comfortable with the idea of spending again. The
economy is fickle and fragile and that’s why consumer perception is so
important. Which brings us to the latest news on an index called
consumer sentiment: The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan survey of how consumers feel about the economy came in at a surprising 83.1, its highest in five years.

Also the independent Economic Cycle Research Institute, which measures future economic expansion, says our economy’s annualized growth rate has accelerated to its fastest pace in over a year.

America
is back, baby! Well, yes, unless a full one-half of the American
government makes it its mission to convince the public that America is
not back and that our economy is free falling and will likely be
decimated beyond repair if a certain someone is re-elected. I won't say
whom, but I'll look at the guilty party and yell, "You lie" at his State
of the Union address.

What you'll hear from Romney/Ryan or, for
that matter, Boehner, Cantor or anyone on Fox News is, "as Scranton
goes, so goes America." Which may help them politically, but it's a lie
that does harm to America. When the economy's health hinges so much on
consumer confidence and sentiment, doesn't it border on treason for a
political party of presumably trusted leaders to claim everything is
going to shit despite an ever-amassing mountain of evidence to the
contrary?

New Rule: Stop telling kids how to live. Certainly Michelle Obama has
the right to encourage them to eat healthier and to get more exercise.
But what about our kids’ right to be big, fat, ignorant tubs of goo? To
those who would mandate healthier school lunches or require students to
participate in some sort of physical activity other than banging their
teacher, I would pose this question: "Why do you hate freedom?"

There
were a couple of stories in the news this month about school students
and administrators pushing back against the do-gooder wellbeing police
and their overzealous attempts to get kids to eat right and exercise.
Sure it's a noble endeavor to promote wellness, but since when is it our
public schools' job to shape our youth and prepare them for a healthy,
successful life?

The first story was
about high school students nationwide boycotting the new, healthier,
calorie-counted school lunches implemented by the Healthy, Hunger-Free
Kids Act of 2010. Fruits, vegetables, whole grains and low-fat milk are
fine in theory, but kids want their pizza, their pudding and their
chicken nuggets. Plus, they get all the exercise they need pumping that
nacho cheese dispenser.

One senior at a Brooklyn high school
said, "Now there's no taste, no flavor and it's healthy, which makes it
taste even worse," which might explain why his protesting classmates
have taken to dumping their "gross" fruits and vegetables on the
cafeteria floor. Take that, nutrition!

The second story is
about a JV football coach in Iowa who overheard one of his players bad
mouthing the varsity team so, as a lesson, he had the kid run laps. You
know, like coaches have done since the beginning of time. Well, the
coach has been suspended for violating the district’s anti-bullying and
corporal punishment policies. Mike Dick, the state's Girls High School
Athletic Union executive director said, "Good common sense would
indicate we're past using conditioning and running in a punitive
manner," adding it's "vindictive in nature." What if the child gets
winded or, worse yet, healthy?

A few phrases from my childhood
come to mind. Phrases like, "If you get hungry enough, you'll eat." And
"You don’t like it? Tough." And "I'll give you something to boycott
about." Of course we shouldn't bully or abuse children, but since when
did that translate into they should never be put out or never be
uncomfortable and always get what they want?

Pakistan is having a moment right now. The "I am Malala" movement has
made the country stop worrying about YouTube videos and start worrying
about the medieval religious lunatics they haven't yet learned to stand
up to. So this is a big chance for the United States to really step
up... and do absolutely nothing.

Again and again, we forget the lesson that most evil-doers eventually
wear out their welcome because they keep doing evil. Shooting a girl in
head for saying that she liked school? That's pretty damn evil.
Journalists are already comparing Malala to Rosa Parks, though it looks
like her personal story might not have a happy ending. Parks didn't have
the happiest life ever, but at least she got to take a few victory laps
at the front of the bus.

But the key here is for the US to not be here. Image-wise, our
military does great when there's an armed government that we can sweep
in and liberate the people from, toss out some chewing gum to kids,
throw around some cash, and then take a bow and leave. But let us linger
and we'll start hammering you with flying robots and pissing on your
corpses, and that will distract everyone's attention from the truly evil
motherfuckers in their midst.

It's easy to forget what the world looked like before 9/11. Al Qaeda
was operating in Afghanistan, but the weak and unpopular Taliban
government wasn't even in charge of the whole country. Neither was
Saddam Hussein in charge of his whole country. He'd also completely
given up on the idea of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons and now
just wanted to look strong so that Iran wouldn't drop the hammer on him.
Also, there were no Taliban in Pakistan.

That's not to say we didn't need to knock out Afghanistan's
government in 2001. But most of what we've done there since has only
served to postpone and distract the majority of people from really
focusing on how deeply they hate the kind of people who shot Malala. But
when you're convinced you're being attacked from the outside, you can
ignore that your house is rotting from the inside. Just ask the
Republican Party.

In 2004 and 2008, gay issues were front and center in the
presidential debates: Are you for gay marriage? Are you for repealing
Don't Ask, Don't Tell? Is Hillary Clinton a lesbian? You couldn't get
away from gay if you tried.

Well, we've now had four debates. Or, if you're a Democrat, three and
a half. And no one has mentioned gays. No one is even talking about gay
issues. No one is being asked to repeat the tired line "I believe
marriage is between a man and a woman." And President Obama no longer
would.
Something may change, but I think it's fair to say that the gay
movement has already won. The issue has come and gone. The numbers are
on the side of pro-gay and pro-gay marriage forces. Nothing has happened
in states with gay marriage that anyone can point to and say, "See? We
were right! Vermont got legal man-on-dog marriage now!"

In fact, it seems gays said, "We're here, we're queer, and most of America got used to it."